life

Is it okay to be different and not be like everybody else?

This post is a response to a question initially posed on Quora, and can also be accessed via “https://www.quora.com/Is-it-okay-to-be-different-and-not-be-like-everybody-else/answer/Antonio-Amaral-1“

Got news for you… you ARE different.

You may think similarly to many others.
You may like similar things.
You may do similar things.
You may believe similar things.
You may be so similar in so many ways that it’s hard to differentiate your identity from the group identity you are affiliated with, but you are different.

You don’t have any choice in the matter because you see through your own eyes, hear through your ears, think with your mind, and have different experiences, even if your experiences are defined by strict adherence to a group protocol.

You are different because no one else can live your life. Your experiences, thoughts, and feelings are irreplaceable, making you a unique and significant individual.

You can share as many details of your life, thoughts, beliefs, ideas, and dreams as you want, as much as anyone else is willing to tolerate, but they will never know life through your eyes.

Here is an example of how different individual perspectives are through an issue that went viral about a decade ago. It was a photograph of a dress which, dependent upon the context of one’s biological composition of rods and cones in their eyes, their state of mind, and the lighting in the room at the time of examining this photo, people would see either a black and blue dress or a white and gold dress.

The dress — Wikipedia

Physically, psychologically, geographically, and within the context of your environment, you ARE different. You cannot help but be different.

You should acknowledge and embrace that fact about yourself and the human condition before deciding how much you might want to be like everyone else.

Wanting to be like everyone else is a generally healthy desire to feel like one belongs somewhere, that they have a place in this world, a community, and a family that supports their existence and accepts them for who they are as they are.

Belongingness is a crucial component of a healthy psychology. Belongingness is a fundamental need we all share in different ways.

We have survived and prospered as a species because we are interdependent beings. We rely on our community bonds to achieve our potential. When we work together, we can accomplish miracles through a force multiplier called “synergy.”

To this degree, wanting to be like “everyone else” can be a healthy motivator to fit in with one’s community and explore one’s unique contributions to achieve one’s potential through support from one’s community.

The downside to being “like everyone else” is to subsume one’s identity to the group and lose one’s sense of identity. The negative consequences are many, varied, and often horrifying, as we have been exposed to numerous nightmares arising out of toxic conformism to a group’s identity and mandates.

Ranging from the inculcated fears of communism that hyper-capitalists invoke as their favourite boogeyman of doom to the cyanide-infused Flavour-Aid victims of cult conditioning, we have all been exposed to the inherent danger of toxic conformism.

Human societies and groups have all evolved along a vector resulting from the conflicts we’ve experienced between two oppositional poles in our thinking about which is the preferred option for a social contract — independence versus conformity.

Neither in their pure form is healthy for any society or group.

The major problem with wanting to be like everyone else is that you can’t be like everyone else precisely because you can’t know what everyone is like beyond the superficial characteristics you identify that make them appear similar to your perceptions.

Your unique perspective identifies similarities unique to your viewpoint. All your efforts to be like everyone else are attempts to be what you imagine everyone else in your group is like.

It’s a subjective approximation of what you perceive as reality, not an objective representation. It can’t be because everyone is just as unique as you.

No matter how hard you try to be like everyone else, you will fail because there is no “everyone else” outside the confines of your imagination. You may even associate yourself with large groups where everyone agrees that everyone else is like them. The reality is that they’re just agreeing with themselves and validating their bias with people who validate their own by acknowledging others who express a similar bias.

It’s a rabbit hole of agreement in which the similarities are no more profound than wearing similar clothing.

The worst part of all of the effort to be like what one imagines of everyone else is that one loses sight of one’s own identity, unique nature, unique path in life, and the unique nature of one’s potential contributions to the world.

It’s almost a paradox in which the more solidarity humanity can achieve, the more we all benefit from the synergy of united effort. At the same time, the more homogenized we become as individuals, subsuming ourselves into a group, the more exposed we are to decay and threat by systemic collapse.

As in all things, the answer to your question is that it is much better to consider this:

There is light within dark and dark within light. While acknowledging this, one arrives at the most crucial understanding of the nature of dichotomies: neither one nor the other is superior — or can even exist without the other because they both exist as a dynamic.

In essence, the best way to be okay is by finding a balance between the two that work best for your unique you.

Temet Nosce

Has humanity only just begun to scratch the surface understanding of the fundamental nature of reality?

This post is a response to a question posed in its full format as follows: “As clever as humanity considers itself to be, has it only just began to scratch the surface of a true understanding of the fundamental nature of reality?”

This question reminds me of the Epistemology course I took at a local university over a summer off from art school. I was accepted into a third-year program without prior university-level philosophy course experience. I successfully leveraged my art school experience toward my application.

This was my introduction to understanding how language can be utilized with the same disciplined approach toward meaning as mathematics. The course material I read felt more like I was interpreting algebraic formulae than English text.

During this period, I realized access to new knowledge domains began with mastering the grammar that defined a domain.

At first, I read and reread sentences until the language made sense. I plodded slowly through the material and expanded beyond spending upwards of half an hour reading sentences to over an hour reading paragraphs and several hours reading entire pages to ensure I had developed what felt like an adequate understanding of what I had read.

This was not my first time having such an experience. Many would be surprised to discover the art world is also filled with jargon and concepts that require an equal measure of effort at the outset to comprehend the information conveyed. However, the grammar defining the art world can be even more complicated and confusing than intermediate philosophy.

Unlike the disciplined rigour of mathematical precision found in the language of philosophy, art world jargon is often subjectively defined and expressed through abstractions rather than through concrete concepts based in a material world. It makes for mixed messaging among instructors, where one adopts interpretations of concepts based on interpersonal dynamics rather than objectively defined definitions of concepts. I remember often tripping over the concept of chiaroscuro because it seemed no matter how I interpreted what is arguably one of the objective terms in art, every instructor had a different definition. I chose to favour the art history instructor’s definition over the conflicting definitions offered by my painting instructors.

At any rate, my painstaking journey through reading my philosophy assignments left me tired enough at the end of the day to sleep soundly at night and wake up feeling like I was prepared for the class discussion of what we had all read. I would attend class feeling confident that I understood the material — until the class discussions began and the instructor interjected with dialectical curveballs to illustrate limitations on some of the arguments forwarded by students.

About halfway through the class, I felt utterly overwhelmed, as if I had no idea what I had read. I felt like my confidence was entirely misplaced and that I should have started my formal training in philosophy at a more junior level.

Then it happened — the discussion veered back onto the topic I thought I had read. I couldn’t fathom how the conversation took a journey to an alternate dimension, but I was happy to see it return to the reality I was most familiar with.

By the end of the class, I was dumbfounded to discover that I was correct about understanding the material at the outset before becoming completely confused. I expressed my frustration publicly. My instructor’s response to my confusion was to say simply, “Yes, but now you know it better.”

This was a lesson for me to understand that knowing what I know is merely a product of my confidence in believing I know what I know, while what I know constitutes only the tip of an iceberg of what is possible to know about what we think we know.

For a real-world example, I still recall my experience in an interview with a recruiter who seemed impressed with me when he remarked, “Wow. You quoted Voltaire. I’ve never heard anyone quote Voltaire in an interview before.” He presented his surprise in a way that made me feel he would be in my corner and support my candidacy. As it turned out, that was the moment he decided I was disqualified as a candidate. He ghosted me after that, and I never got another opportunity presented to me through that agency.

It took me a while to figure out what had happened, but when I did, I connected that experience with a much earlier one in which I was on the phone with someone about a temporary labour assignment. I remember asking specifically, “What does the job entail?” The response I got was a very dry, “Welllll…. it entaaaaaaaails moving stuff.” I lost out on that opportunity, and the memory of that experience lingers as a reminder of my language choices and their impact on others.

I’ve had to learn to become very aware of how my natural self is interpreted from a young age when I deliberately chose to use the shortened form of my name to fit in. As a kid who became fat to gain approval from an abusive mother, I had to become aware of responses to my natural state of being from a very young age.

I know that my language choices can be offputting for some. I know that when some stranger uses the short form of my name to address me, it’s a form of disparagement that speaks volumes about their attitude. I’m pretty aware of subtleties many miss, even if I don’t catch them immediately — mainly because I’m not naturally focused on the underlying cynicism many naturally wallow in, so it can take me some time to tune myself into their frequency.

I’m using myself as an example to answer this question because I know I’m pretty self-aware and more than most, but it doesn’t matter how much I know about myself; I’m still discovering new things about myself. This isn’t to say that I’m primarily interested in myself for the sake of knowing myself, but knowing myself is a conduit to a better understanding of the world I live in — for several reasons.

One of those reasons is inspired by an expression I’ve been primarily familiar with as an attribution to Voltaire — yes, precisely the quote I referenced above:

After being inspired by this quote for about thirty years, I discovered it wasn’t a quote by Voltaire. These are words from someone far earlier in history, Publius Terentius Afer, a Roman playwright otherwise more popularly known as Terence.

“Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto.”

These are words from a play entitled “Heauton Timorumenos” (The Self-Tormentor) — Act 1, scene 1, line 77, written in 165 B.C.

The Wisdom of a Former Slave

I had lived with these words, inspiring my pursuit of knowledge of the world through the understanding of self for more than half my life before learning the truth of their origins. I’m still learning new things about it — even though I deeply value what they imply — to me.

This brings me to another quote I treasure by Picasso that he uttered in his 60s after already transforming the art world with his visions, “I am only just learning how to paint.”

I loved these words the moment I encountered them because they confirmed that I was on the right track in wanting to become an artist in this world and this life. I understood that what one does to find fulfillment in one’s life is contingent upon loving what one does. The fact that there was no end to learning within art, as expressed by a historical giant, inspired me.

I would never get bored by being an artist. I would never find myself outgrowing what exceeded my grasp, and I could give myself wholeheartedly to its exploration — infinitely — or at least within the context of a finite life.

There was no way I could become complacent and detached from life by choosing a vocation of exploration of life itself. The fact that I would never learn all there could be to know wasn’t a deterrent but an inspiration and a challenge to motivate me to learn as much as possible within the finiteness of time available to me in this life.

Within this microscopic pool of choice available to me as an individual, I found enough inspiration to carry me through a life of discovery. When I imagine the vastness of a universe, we have no clue how large it is or what there may be to discover, and it seems to me that the human species can find millions, if not billions, of years of motivation for discovery.

We have certainly learned a lot about the nature of reality, from a psychological to a physiological to a physical and materialist nature, and beyond, while exploring reality on a quantum level. The fundamental characteristic of learning is that with each answer to a question answered, many more questions emerge. Answers to questions about the nature of reality appear like fractal algorithms that can spawn infinite questions.

No matter how long or how well we succeed in surviving — mostly the challenges posed by our hubris, we’ll never run out of room for discovery.

This, to me, defines the very core of the most basic lesson in life: it’s not the destination which matters; it’s the journey.

Temet Nosce

Are human rights natural rights endowed simply by the virtue of being human?

This post is a response to a question initially posed on Quora.

Human rights are essentially an agreement between humans to protect a characteristic or behaviour of all humans within their community.

Human rights exist only by virtue of the agreement itself and the degree of commitment by other humans to protect those rights.

This is a global issue, with human rights being violated all the time and everywhere on the planet. It’s a problem that demands our immediate attention and action. This is why human rights are violated all the time and everywhere on the earth.

We have far too many humans who view rights as scalable according to their essentially misanthropic perceptions of humanity — because we are suffering from a mental health pandemic affecting at least one in five among us. We are only now beginning to realize that we are a species that has been suffering for centuries from generational trauma from our barbaric origins.

The fight for universal human rights is a fundamental building block in a healing process that will require centuries to emerge from.

We are far better off today than we were one century ago simply because of our increased awareness of the issues we are dealing with and an emerging appropriate context from which we interpret our experiences.

Human rights are crucial to preserving the social contract and ensuring systemic stability.

Without human rights as a concept enshrined into law, we descend into barbarism.

After writing this answer and posting it, I realize I’m doing a disservice to the concept by providing such little context.

Human rights have a long and bloody history of development in which their inklings as concepts we should value as a species were responses to centuries of brutal violence characterizing human life.

The earliest examples of human rights enshrined in local laws date back to circa 2350 BC in Asia as the reforms of “Urukagina of Lagash,” which evolved into more well-known examples of legal documentation such as “The Code of Hammurabi” from circa 1780 BC.

Ancient Egypt also supported fundamental human rights through documents such as “The Edicts of Ashoka” (c. 268–232 BC). Other principles of human behaviour emerged during this period, while one such principle has been incorporated throughout most living religions today and is popularly known as “The Golden Rule.”

Fast forward to 622, and “The Constitution of Medina” functioned as a formal agreement between Muhammad and the tribes and families of Yathribe, which included Muslims, Jews, and pagans. This agreement was an early means of uniting all peoples of the land under a common identity referred to as “Ummah” and incorporated several changes to how slavery was defined and limited.

Early Islamic laws from this period incorporated principles of military conduct and the treatment of prisoners of war that became precursors to international humanitarian law.

Moving forward into the Middle Ages, the most influential document establishing the modern basis for human rights was the creation of the “Magna Carta,” itself heavily influenced by early Christian thinkers such as St Hilary of Poitiers, St Ambrose, and St Augustine.

The Magna Carta of 1215 influenced the development of “common law” and several constitutional documents following, all related to human rights, including the (1689) “English Bill of Rights” and the (1789) United States Constitution.

Some may remember from the Iraq War and the establishment of Guantanamo that the Bush administration suspended the writ of “Habeas Corpus” — the right to know what one has been accused of — was a right established in the Magna Carta. This was a fundamental violation of a basic right that set the nation back in time to an era of barbarism — and they hypocritically leveraged that violation to commit war crimes for waterboarding that the U.S. itself forced Japan to face an international tribunal for war crimes over the same behaviour decades earlier.

This is a stain on the American people that will not wash off their conscience while they do nothing to own responsibility for their grotesque violation. This dark moral failing of the nation has become a slippery slope of moral failures permitting the monstrosity of immoral behaviour. We — as in the world- are now on the verge of potentially falling entirely into a pit of immorality because of their “leadership” in this area.

At any rate, I’ll avoid proselytizing further and get to the goods of reading material and a “pretty picture” at the end with a chart of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

Human rights — Wikipedia

History of human rights — Wikipedia

A Short History of Human Rights

A brief history of human rights — Amnesty International

Universal Declaration of Human Rights | United Nations

Are we more committed to protecting free speech or cancelling voices that challenge our beliefs?

This post is a response to a question posed on Quora

Upon encountering this question, I thought, “Who is ‘we’?”

My second thought is that this is a typical question by someone who doesn’t understand what “free speech” means.

People often misconstrue “free speech” as a right to say whatever they want wherever they go without suffering the consequences of the content of their speech.

That’s not even remotely close to what “free speech” means.

“Free speech” means only that you will not be hauled off in the middle of the night by your government for saying something that a government authority doesn’t like.

That’s it.

That’s the extent of “free speech” in society.

“Free speech” has never been, nor will it ever be, anything more than a protection against a dictatorial government determining acceptability for the concepts people publicly discuss.

Here’s an example of a violation of the principle of “Free Speech” in society:

This is a politician who has already announced to the world that they are willing to strip fundamental rights from a people based on being personally offended over the presentation of their own words repeated verbatim.

Here is an example of how a self-declared “Free Speech Absolutist” regards “Free Speech.”

This is NOT a “Free Speech” violation because Xitter is a privately owned space, not a government entity. Elon is well within his rights to ban anyone he pleases in the same way you are entitled to kick anyone you don’t like out of your house for no reason you would need to use to justify kicking them out of your house. Your home is yours. You have every right to enforce any rule you like, whether irrational or contradictory.

All Quora answers are the property of all the authors of those answers, and that’s a HUGE draw for people because it means we can delete abusive comments or turn off comments altogether. After all, “freedom of speech,” in practical terms, also means “freedom from speech” — just like “freedom of religion” also means “freedom from religion.”

“Freedom of speech” is NOT an entitlement to be heard. It is a protection from a malicious entity with the power of a government to enforce the homogenization of a public under an autocratic system.

When people reject stupidity barfed up by people they don’t want to hear from, they’re not “cancelling” anything. They’re simply exercising their right to refuse to subject themselves to personally offensive speech.

When it comes down to the notion of being cancelled as a criticism of what happens in society, if one were to create a ven diagram of the people who complain about “cancel society” and the people who endorse banning books, it would be a circle.

Otherwise, the reality of “cancelling a voice” while violating the concept and principle of “free speech” literally means hauling someone off in the dead of night because they offended some government official like Drumpf by repeating their own words to the public in the way that journalism is supposed to in society.

I think the people who complain the most about this issue should spend more time educating themselves on what “Free speech” means. The most impactful lesson one could undergo and never forget is to take a trip to North Korea. Set up a soap box on a street corner. They can then begin criticizing the North Korean government to see exactly what it means to “cancel a voice.”

Otherwise, the tiresome whining about “cancelling voices” on social media is interpreted much like enduring nails on a blackboard.

Is it okay to tell your religious family that you have atheist views?

Chances are excellent that if you have to ask strangers online, you’re already concerned about their reactions.

That should be a huge red flag, especially after reading some of the horror stories in the answers already given.

Your parents have spent a lifetime being who they are and believing what they do.

Their vision for having children was miniature versions of themselves who they could accept may take a different path than they took for themselves but would at least hold the same values they do.

As you may have noticed, religious beliefs are not like most other beliefs people have about different things in life.

Religious beliefs are personal identities, group associations, and a support structure where opportunities in life are found.

They will view their religious beliefs as a prescription for success in life and a symbol of unity within their family. All their children sharing in their beliefs means they will have become successful parents who have given their children their best chances at leading a happy and rewarding life like they feel religion has done for them.

Rejecting their religious beliefs will be interpreted as a rejection of their parenting.

It may not make sense to think of religious beliefs you don’t share on this level in that way. The reactions you will get from them if you insist on having them see you on a different path to self-development, self-discovery, and self-discipline than they took will show you what a wedge in your relationship will feel like.

They may initially show some acceptance because they love you more than their adherence to their beliefs, but that acceptance will grow into a distance between you.

You will eventually discover their open embrace of you, and your accomplishments will be responded to with increasing disinterest.

During periods of conflict, they may claim they no longer understand you and will blame your straying from their beliefs as the cause. They will look for scapegoats to blame and begin criticizing your choice of friends, the school you attend, or the video games you play.

Anything they can use to justify how you are not choosing to betray them willingly, they will weaponize during open conflicts you might have. If you have never experienced open conflicts with them before, you likely will afterwards.

To answer your question directly, it’s okay to be who you are, and it’s even recommended in a world where you will spend your entire life fighting to preserve who you believe yourself to be, but you will have to learn to pick your battles in life, and some are just not worth fighting.

Eroding one of the most important relationships you will ever have is not a battle anyone should take lightly, particularly in a world where a whopping majority (70%-80%) of families are dysfunctional. Suppose you have a happy family life as it currently stands. In that case, you might want to accept how that’s already a treasure beyond what most experience. It may not be worth giving that up to have them accept what you believe in yourself because your assertion could very well end up in your rejection.

You can certainly continue to question your views on religious beliefs, and you should continue to do that for the rest of your life because that’s how you will grow as a person. Understand, though, that it is always a personal journey one takes. As much as one would like to share every intimate detail of that journey with others, it’s impossible with almost every other person one will encounter.

Your personal development journey will always be your journey. The rest of everything you encounter will be about how to get along with the people in your life so that your life isn’t made any more complicated than it already is or will be.

Good luck with your journey through this nuthouse.

Do you ever wonder where consciousness originated from?

This post is a response to a question posed in its full format as follows: “Atheists, do you ever wonder where consciousness originated from? Do you sit back and think ‘maybe science doesn’t have the answer to everything?’”

Based on the fleeting interest in the topic demonstrated by the wording in this question, I have wondered that likely more than most. I’m obsessive that way. It’s a curse I must have been born with because I remember thoughts as a toddler that may not have been quite as sophisticated as now but definitely within the ballpark.

20–20 hindsight leads me to believe my life would have been far easier if I had realized I could create a vocation and a “normal life” around the formal pursuit of knowledge in that realm. I had to get this far on my own before I could think about options I didn’t realize could have been available to me then.

Even as a kid, I valued my mind more than my body, and I found myself attracted to any reading material, fact or fiction, that expanded my views on the mental realm. This led me to explore myths at an early enough age to understand how religion is also just mythology, except that people believe it’s more than that.

I should have been more focused on exploring the sciences, but I was more interested in exploring self-knowledge, which led me straight to the arts. Economically, it was the worst decision I could have made. Insofar as personal development is concerned and surviving the nightmares I’ve endured, it has been my only means of making it this far.

By the time I went to art school, I had already consumed many subjects from various realms. I have enjoyed material from scientific objectivity and metaphysical subjectivity. The arts have enabled me to process abstractions such that when Carlos Castaneda, Jane Roberts, or Edgar Cayce wowed me, I never interpreted their material from a literalist perspective. I still love and am affected by the imagery they evoked within me. People like Joseph Campbell were an incredible inspiration to me from the standpoint of cognitive discipline and the “hard sciences modality of thought,” but discovering Douglas Hofstadter’s “Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid” was like being hit with a hammer to crack open a hard shell surrounding my awareness of consciousness.

I highly recommend “The Mind’s I” as an “easier-to-consume” piece of his writing.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2081.The_Mind_s_I

At any rate, my pitiful comprehension of the sciences allowed me to understand, on at least a basic level, that science itself isn’t an answer to anything. Unlike religion, however, “science doesn’t lie” about being an answer to everything.

Science itself isn’t even a source of knowledge — people are.

Science is just a process of determining facts, leading some incredible minds to discover amazing facts about our universe.

One recent proposition arrived at through the scientific discipline of inquiry is that we may be on the verge of identifying a connection to or a source of consciousness within the quantum realm. That’s exciting news to me.

Not too long ago, I chanced upon this image:

This set my imagination on fire as an analogy for 3-dimensional existence created by consciousness itself. I had already been aware of issues like the “Thermostat Problem,” “Integrated Information Theory,” memory structures stored in 11-dimensional space, and microtubules in our brains that directly interact with quantum space. This image was like another crack in a shell obscuring my view of consciousness.

The analogy I draw from this image is that “consciousness shines through” our physicality to take shape in a three-dimensional structure we understand as reality. The shadow in this image represents physical reality, while our biology shapes the nature of consciousness within the context of a three-dimensional space.

Recently, much more intelligent people with dedicated minds have been exploring realms outside my comprehension in ways that filter down to hope within me that we will eventually solve the mystery of consciousness — even though it still feels far too distant to believe we’ll manage to create artificial facsimiles of actual consciousness. We can’t map quantum space, and I’m not knowledgeable enough to know if that’s possible or how we could do that.

How the hell do we establish a coordinate system for virtual particles? At this point, all I can think of is that we can’t and likely never will; if we can, it won’t be in any near future.

At any rate, anyone with any basic understanding of science knows science is not a magical source of all knowledge like religion pretends to. It’s at least testable and verifiable knowledge rather than the ludicrous fictions concocted by religious nonsense that leave reality far behind in its rearview mirror as it gallops into fantasyland.

Here’s some additional reading on the subject of consciousness by people far more advanced in their explorations than I am.

Quantum mechanics and the puzzle of human consciousness

https://alleninstitute.org/news/quantum-mechanics-and-the-puzzle-of-human-consciousness/

Study Shows Consciousness May Be Product of Quantum Effect

https://www.gaia.com/article/study-shows-consciousness-may-be-product-of-quantum-effect?gad_source=1

Quantum Physics Could Finally Explain Consciousness, Scientists Say

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a40898392/quantum-physics-consciousness/?gad_source=1

Oh… let’s not forget a valuable source of primers on almost every subject imaginable — good ol’ Wikipedia — please donate if you can to this marvellous resource that thumbs its nose at the parasitism of capitalism and generates knowledge for its true value to humanity.

Quantum Mind

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind

Temet Nosce

Are people poor because they were born to be poor?

This post is a response to a question posed in its full format as follows: “What can we say for those people that worked hard but are still poor? Is it because they were born to be poor?”

The first place to begin one’s assessment of another’s fortune is with an honest apprehension of the environment affecting all fortunes by all people who inhabit a (somewhat) closed ecosystem.

To suggest some external source of magical influence like fate to factor in any of this merely distracts from an objective apprehension of the dynamics leading to disparity.

It is precisely this kind of magical thinking that every “Confidence Artist” (“conman,” “swindler,” “scammer,” fraud) throughout human history has relied upon to enrich themselves at the expense of their victims.

Making matters worse for the victims is the belief that they’re responsible for the actions of others who impoverish them.

This thinking epitomizes victim-shaming.

It’s no different than blaming one’s attire for “causing” a rape.

It’s precisely the thinking a homicidal monster utilizes when they claim someone else’s actions forced them to commit murder. They twist the notion of self-defence into a justifiable weapon to dismiss responsibility for their actions.

This perverse thinking permits people like Derek Chauvin to suffocate George Floyd until they stop breathing. It empowers all the evil monsters in our midst to invoke sociopathic rationalizations unrelated to the incident in question to justify the commission of murder.

Inmate who stabbed Derek Chauvin 22 times is charged with attempted murder, prosecutors say

It ignores the causal nature of reality. Even the Bible’s Genesis chapter and “list of begats” acknowledge causality.

Bible, King James Version

People are not poor because of some cosmic assignment handed down to them by an authority, as if it were a justifiable assessment of their character at birth. People are poor because humanity has not learned the lessons of our primitive existence — namely, that we managed to survive our cave-dwelling origins only because we worked together as we hunted in groups. Each contributed to the welfare of the whole in ways that allowed everyone to benefit equally from the collective labours of synergy.

Margaret Mead has most succinctly identified the dawn of human civilization in her example of a knit bone discovered during her anthropological studies.

The worst aspect of all of this is that the evidence is abundant. There is no mystery as to why so many people struggle with poverty today.

In our early history, widespread poverty primarily resulted from natural scarcity due to environmental conditions such as an early frost wiping out an entire harvest or poor land management practices such as those that led to “The Dust Bowl” and the “Dirty Thirties.” Ironically, the magical thinking of “Manifest Destiny” driving an initial bump in prosperity contributed to the impoverished conditions that contributed to “The Great Depression,” which contributed to the stressors driving global aggressions leading to a Second World War only decades after the first global aggression.

Dust Bowl: Causes, Definition & Years | HISTORY

The fuel behind all of the poverty and aggression is the same fuel contributing to an increasing number and degree of violent protests occurring worldwide today — income disparity. We have surpassed the stage of income disparity that triggered our first global aggressions due to the stresses of exacerbated conditions of poverty.

This cycle of class disparity has triggered aggressions throughout human history, and many of our popular stories are based on them.

We should know better by now, but we seem incapable of learning this crucial lesson from history.

What makes matters worse is that in today’s “post-scarcity world,” we produce more than we can consume. We have no excuse for poverty today beyond human failings, as expressed through our politics.

Can we feed the world and ensure no one goes hungry?

None of this is a mystery — or should be a mystery to anyone today. Yet, here we are looking for excuses to victim-shame the vulnerable in society who struggle to feed themselves every day.

The information providing clarity exists in abundance. Few people are ignorant of the fact that eight people have as much wealth as the bottom half of the whole of humanity. No one is oblivious to the magical sound of the designation we venerate of a “centibillionaire.” It’s like a status of godhood on Earth that people seriously believe is a consequence of effort and ingenuity and not a dysfunctional system that impoverishes the vulnerable.

Few people perceive that obscenity in terms of the threat to global stability that it is. Few people perceive that amount of power within the hands of an egotist as a direct threat to their livelihoods — unless, of course, they’re one of the thousands who have been displaced on a whim by a megalomaniac who spent $44 billion to own the world’s most enormous megaphone so that they can capture global attention every day.

Few people look at graphs like these two and become horrified by their implications.

Yet… here we are, sending ourselves on a path in which the logical conclusion of the trajectory summed up by these two graphs is the end of human civilization as we know it. Instead of focusing on how to correct our course, we’re looking for reasons to victim-shame the most vulnerable among us.

It’s entirely disgusting that so many people are so willing to demonize the victims in society that it is mind-boggling how such utterly primitive thinking can exist in modern society.

Centuries from now, if we survive this insanity, this mindset will be viewed as the horrific equivalent of witch trials from our history.

Is it worth responding to the laughing emoji reactions to a tragic post on Facebook?

This post is a response to a question that was asked in its complete format: “What do people think of others who react with a laughing emoji to a serious or tragic post on Facebook? Is it worth going through the list and giving them all a nasty pm, or would this be a rather pointless and sad exercise?”

That list you imagine going through to castigate people individually is often over one hundred people and can sometimes be several hundred to over one thousand.

Going through one list of even just one hundred people would easily chew up your entire day.

You would also have to deal with pushback and people reporting you for intrusive messages on their DM.

You would likely find yourself consigned to Facebook jail for your efforts.

Even the process of blocking on Facebook is onerous enough where if that’s all you did was block one hundred people, that would easily chew up a few hours of your day…

On just one post.

Odds are excellent, and you could find at least half a dozen such posts that motivate you to block hundreds to thousands daily.

It could be a full-time job just blocking people, and you would still find a never-ending supply of names to block within a user base of two billion.

Blocking one thousand people daily would take three years to block one million people.

If you were to go by statistics that bear out at one in five people having severe mental health issues, you would need to block 400 million people.

That would be a lifelong job working every day from morning until you fell asleep without any break from that task.

If that’s how you wish to spend your life, it’s your choice, but you may find other approaches to making your point more beneficial to your sanity.

You can post a public comment on a post where you can chastize all inappropriate laugh reactions at once. I’ve done that, and it can feel rewarding when you get a lot of feedback from people who appreciate someone publicly criticizing lousy behaviour. You will also find that you’ll get laugh reactions on your complaint that you can address.

If you think you will have a discernible impact on behaviours, then you’re not being realistic because succeeding on that level will require years of effort.

You may want to consider lobbying Facebook for improvements to their blocking process because it sucks. It’s onerous and constantly redirects you to pages you probably don’t want to see repeatedly.

Change.org has a petition that has already gathered 296 signatures, and as of this writing, it requests that the Laughing Emoji be removed from Facebook altogether.

Sign the Petition
I recently wrote feedback to Facebook about something that’s been bothering me about their emoji feature. Here is what…www.change.org

If it gains enough traction, we might see at least some changes to their emojis if the laughing emoji isn’t removed altogether.

Here is another article calling for its removal:

No laughing matter: Why it’s time to cancel Facebook’s haha reaction
That squinting, grinning idiot is poisoning Facebook.thespinoff.co.nz

Whatever you decide to do at this point, it’s probably wisest to consider it more personal venting than instigating social change. Otherwise, you will tire yourself into a frustrated frenzy while spinning your wheels and going nowhere.

A helpful quote you should keep in mind for whatever you choose to do is from Winston Churchill.

Good luck with whatever you choose to do.

Why are progressives communist sympathizers?

Upon reading this question, I first thought you had no clue what communism is beyond maybe the bread lines. Even then, I doubt you would know why that happened or how unrelated it was to Marx’s vaguely defined description of communism.

I thought of you as just another Pavlovian dog who’s been programmed to barf up “communism” about everything you hate, like most MAGAts who don’t wash their panties often enough.

As part of my investigation into profiles I block, I often check out their followers because… Why TF do people follow morons? I also frequently get a chuckle over Chucklehead followers while finding many blockworthy candidates. I learned this practice from Billy Flowers because that idiot creates a LOT of profiles that follow each other. I doubt there are ever any real people in their sewing circle.

At any rate, beyond usually finding catfish to block so that I don’t get the typical message on my answers that goes something like this: “Gee. I loooooove your posts but can’t seem to follow you. Pleeeeeze follow meeeee and I promise to like you.”

You didn’t have many of those, but what you have as part of your follower group is quite sad. It makes me think about my latest sub-category of troll:

In this case, however, it’s not quite so funny because it’s a stereotype that’s a huge part of the reason why we have generational trauma running through the whopping majority (70%-80%) of dysfunctional families.

Almost all of your followers have suffered beatings as a child that you interpret in the downplayed term of “corporal punishment.” You seem to be part of that group who interprets the physical abuse you suffered as “normal” and that you “turned out fine” when the reality is that you haven’t.

Your question shows that, but I doubt you would understand why.

The clue is that it’s in the misanthropic nature of your attitude toward “progressives.”

Progressives want to see progress in society because they want a world where kids are disciplined through reason, not violence. There’s no need to be violent with a child. Ever. That’s a lazy parent’s approach to restraining a child’s behaviour when they don’t want to make the time to do it correctly and through words.

They don’t consider how what they’re teaching their children is that violence is acceptable. That’s what you and your followers have learned. That’s why generational trauma exists.

Although I used the term “lazy parent” above, that’s not a correct way to point out the perpetuation of trauma, but it’s a pointed statement done for an emotional effect. It helps to focus attention on a serious issue affecting all of society.

In your case, you’ve been taught that getting what you want through violence is not only acceptable but an effective means of achieving your goal. From the starting point of physical violence in your repertoire of imposing your will onto others, doing that with words becomes second nature.

That’s why you rely on trigger words like “communism” because you’ve been taught to react emotionally to something you don’t understand beyond “It’s bad, m’kay.”

Since you can’t go around beating up on people who want to see progress in society, you restrain your angst by using words that can simulate the adrenalin rush you would otherwise get from physicality.

If you succeed in putting your “Idiotological Enemas™” in their place by calling them “commies,” then you’ve achieved your goal of giving them “the ol’ wut fer,” and that’s a win for you… at least an emotional win if they can’t come back with a witty response that shuts you up.

Chances are excellent that more and more of you “anti-commie” types are finding that happen these days. I remember only a few decades ago that it would be an effective conversation terminator that allowed people like you to feel like you’ve “won your debates.” I’ve never understood the value of that no-prize beyond a temporary dopamine high gained through ego-stroking. It was never my drug of choice because I grew up with idiots who couldn’t get enough of it at my expense.

At any rate, that’s the reason why you posted your question.

You have no clue what “communism” is, but you know you can use that word like a hammer.

You have no clue what a “progressive” is or what their goals for society are, nor do you care, even though those goals would benefit you directly and give you a life of dignity. The math is too hard on your hamster to add it up and see a plus to personal benefit on the bottom line. Besides, you’re too busy hating progressives because they drink lattes and eat avocado toast. You’re either jealous of the latte and disgusted by the avocado toast, or you don’t like their fashion sense.

It wouldn’t surprise me that you’ve yelled out, “Get a haircut, you hippy!” at least once in your life, or “Go back to where you came from!” because no one who isn’t a part of the cult you belong to deserves to live in your neighbourhood and get all of the benefits you take for granted.

For the record, “communism” has never really existed in the way that Marx vaguely described it as the next step in an evolution for governance beyond socialism.

Neither has democracy, for that matter.

Both are just concepts that different people define in various ways. While we, the leetul monkeys of society, argue what democracy is in reality among ourselves as we fling bananas and feces around to keep us distracted from the oligarchs pulling all our strings.

They love that you and so many of your tards barf up communism left, right, and centre like it’s your favourite rock song by Dead-Headed Zeppelins.

It’s much easier for them to keep stealing Trillion$ out of our pockets while you’re barking “commie, commie, commie” up and down the streets. That’s why they feed you “Anger Biscuits®” on TV while raking in billions from the morons who glue themselves to their favourite hate-porn channels.

I doubt you have ever watched a documentary in your life, but you think Idiocracy was one without realizing that if it were, you would be the main subject of that flick.

No one “sympathizes with communists” because whatever exists of people who support it are primarily academic in their support. There isn’t any real political movement toward communism, but I think that you would probably disagree while claiming North Korea and China are communist countries — even though they’re not.

As a political system, communism died last century as the authoritarian versions of it that were implemented proved themselves to be utter failures. I know you might think that communism failed, but it didn’t. It was an authoritarian government that failed like every authoritarian government throughout history.

This brings us back full circle to your upbringing because you endorse capital punishment, and that’s precisely the attitude of an authoritarian.

If we are to equate authoritarian governments with communism, then that means YOU have more of an affinity with communism than a progressive.

If anyone were to be described as a “communist sympathizer” based upon the style of communism, you’ve been taught to fear. It would be you and your fellow MAGAtards℠ who rationalize authoritarian approaches to government.

If you have a pipe, now would be the time to pack all of this into that dirty bowl and start smoking.

Cheerioz Numbnutz

Does gossip cause negative group processes, or do negative group processes cause gossip?

Gossip corrodes group cohesion, while negative group processes can feed gossip as people require an outlet for their frustrations.

On a national level, we’re observing a distressing trend. People, disillusioned by ineffective processes, are seeking outlets for their frustrations. This often leads to the scapegoating of marginalized subgroups by influential voices within the group. However, this blame game does nothing to address the root causes of their frustrations, only serving to perpetuate the cycle of negativity.

The consequence of blame-shifting leads to spiralling instability within the group and nation, as is the case with what’s happening worldwide as we experience increasing protests due to historic levels of income injustice.

The solution to this problem is two-fold: address the underlying causes (the elements negatively affecting group processes) and hold leadership accountable for de-escalating rather than escalating group negativity. It’s crucial that we, as a society, hold our leaders responsible for their actions to empower positive change.

On a national scale, we are struggling precisely because of the messaging we are all receiving from all fronts, including political leaders, leaders in our information brokering system (media), and our captains of industry. All forms of leadership in society today are primarily responsible for the increasing destabilization we are experiencing today of what we refer to as a “civilized society.”

We live in a world where those most responsible for ensuring group cohesion act in service to their best interests at the expense of becoming the underlying causes of group destabilization.

We are deliberately inundated with negative messaging because it serves the shallow interests of the few among us with too much power who view the rest of us as pawns in service to their whims. This is a practice of mollifying a public that has existed since the dawn of human civilization and has been taken to new extremes in today’s interconnected world in our information age.

Messaging has become the modern equivalent of tanks on a battlefield where the prize to be won and the territories to be controlled are the minds of the little people who serve as pawns in their games of power.

“All other things being equal, messages received in greater volume and from more sources will be more persuasive.”

Russia’s “Firehose of Falsehood” Propaganda Model

Since its 2008 incursion into Georgia, there has been a remarkable evolution in Russia’s approach to propaganda. Effective solutions can be found in the same psychology literature that explains the Russian propaganda model’s surprising success.

https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE198.html

Fortunately, we can refuse the negativity directed toward our fellow victims because we outnumber the few who seek control over the many and because we can lose our ability to make our own determinations about the future we want by willingly handing over control of our minds to those who would seek to sublimate all of human society to servants in thrall to their whims.

We can reject gossip and demand adherence to the primacy of facts from all our leaders, politicians, media empires (the Fourth Estate), and plutocrats.

If they don’t obey the wishes of the masses, then we can organize and make them follow the social contract they are beholden to and obey the needs of the societies they benefit from.